Furious Violet: A Novel

Summary

From the author of the bestselling phenomenon Dietland comes a razor-sharp, subversive thriller about motherhood, obsession, and the stories we tell ourselves to survive.

Violet “West” Shelley has unwillingly spent her life in the spotlight as the only daughter of a legendary poet and feminist icon who died tragically young. Now, as the self-described “lowbrow” crime journalist approaches fifty—burned out, creatively blocked, and far older than her mother ever was—she retreats to her hometown in the Colorado mountains hometown to finish a long-overdue book about the “Crying Killer,” a notorious serial killer who sobs for his mother after committing his crimes.

But what begins as a bid for solitude quickly spirals into something far more sinister. A stalker emerges—mysterious, relentless, with accusations disturbingly intimate: this invisible stranger insists that West is their long-lost mother, though West has never had children. As the threats escalate and her carefully defended privacy starts to shatter, West is drawn into a chilling psychological web where the boundaries between fiction and reality begin to collapse.

Is she being watched? Hunted? Or is her own mind turning against her?

Gripping, provocative, and laced with pitch-black humor, Furious Violet is a psychological thrill ride and a fierce exploration of mothers (real and imagined), fame, and the question of who can lay claim to women’s bodies of work—and their bodies themselves. Once again, Sarai Walker has delivered a subversively brilliant heroine unlike any other: damaged, defiant, and utterly unforgettable.